An interesting statistic

Thanks for replying to me MrEmMak,
I suppose I get a bit defensive when people suggest that others' self-harm or suicide attempts are just attention-seeking behaviours, and not indicative of real suffering.

I don't relate to a lot of the stereotypical BPD behaviours. I think I'm more to the opposite end of the scale when it comes to emotions and validation. But I once tried to kill my self. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't know how. When I realised my attempt had failed and I wasn't going to die, I fell into a numb stupor that seemed to last a few years.

But I wouldn't believe for a second that because I didn't tell anyone, that I was suffering more than people who do ask for help. Nor do I believe that I was suffering less than people who succeed in killing themselves. These comparisons detract from the issue, which is that a person is suffering.

Sometimes I wonder if things would have worked-out differently for me and my family if I had been brave enough to express how I was feeling at the time. Or even if I had died. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. But I realise I never gave anyone the chance to help me when I needed it most. I didn't give them the opportunity to respond to a crisis and learn from it.

So to any BPDers reading, I would hate for you to feel that you should be ashamed of showing your suffering or asking for help. It may be that your suffering seems exaggerated to normies. Not everyone will understand. But that's okay. It's just the way this crazy world works - we can't know what it's like to be each other. But I wish you could find a way to get the validation and support you need without harming yourself.

miss_understood wrote:

Squeekerz wrote:
If I ever killed myself, it would be very much intentional. I tried once before and didn't plan on telling anyone, but I always keep promises, so I fulfilled the promise I made to a friend to tell them so he could say "goodbye." Only, he called an ambulance instead of saying bye. I am very grateful for him.

So, IF there is a 'next time', (hopefully NOT, of course) will you be saying ''goodbye'' to this friend again?

Of course you won't... not if you truly intend to kill yourself.

You must've known that your friend wouldn't just say ''goodbye'', put the 'phone down and go back to bed, surely?

I have no idea what I was thinking, honestly. I was walking down the street towards home, decided that life just wasn't worth it, and started walking to the nearest McDonald's to get a final drink/sandwich. I took pills crying on the way there, and finished the bottle in the restaurant. You'd think someone would've noticed a girl sitting alone with a giant bottle of pills, taking them all...

In any case, I called my friend as I was nearly passing out in bed (From Tylenol, which probably says something. I never expected you could get so tired from tylenol. I actually remember feeling good... a light... pleasant tiredness... Like I just wanted to drift away to sleep.) But yeah.. I told him I was calling to say goodbye, 'cause that's what I believed I really was doing. It took him awhile to finally get my address out of me... and I will admit that I felt really happy that he actually was worried and cared. He actually told his mother to call 911 while he kept me on the phone, 'cause I would've fallen asleep otherwise...


... he got to my house before the paramedics. I went outside and hugged him, then the ambulance got there and asked if I wanted to come with them. I said "no" but they just lightly put their hands on my shoulders and said "well, that's too bad because you have to." Haha. I went with them, obviously. I'm not a fighter. The whole time my family had no idea what was going on... my friend told them after I was already on the way to the hospital... Thinking about it now, I feel awful that my family had to go through that, thinking that I didn't care about them. Thing is, I knew they'd spaz out if I told them what I did.


.... Sorry I wrote a long story in response.. =/





But yeah... I don't believe I did it for attention... but I know I was not fully prepared to die either. If I ever attempted to kill myself now I would be prepared, and wouldn't tell anyone until it'd be too late to save me anyway. I have plans, but I don't have the desire to act on them, 'cause I'm nowhere near as low as I was back then.

So, in essence, I suppose you're right. I didn't really want to die. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to drift off and just not feel anything ever again. Not existing would be perfect for that... I felt that to not exist would be better than to live in pain. I couldn't break my promise though, and I wanted to hear his voice once more. I still love that man. My first boyfriend... my first love... I hope he realizes I'll always love him. He suffers from depression as well, which is why I believed it when he said he just wanted to say "goodbye."

Platypus wrote: it.

So to any BPDers reading, I would hate for you to feel that you should be ashamed of showing your suffering or asking for help. It may be that your suffering seems exaggerated to normies. Not everyone will understand. But that's okay. It's just the way this crazy world works - we can't know what it's like to be each other. But I wish you could find a way to get the validation and support you need without harming yourself.

Sorry, I was exaggerating that BPDers are not suffering. It was sarcasm. I absolutely think they suffer, in ways most people can't understand. And they can push us away so easily, just believing we're bad and deserve whatever we get.

I really like your point of acknowledging suffering. I don't think it's that people hate us, just that nobody believes we're as pathetically sad as we are and we start to be something else. Eventually we don't believe we're sad either. We have all kinds of horrible mechanisms we come up with to fit in to what other people want. If 19 people all argue the same thing for 20 years, the 20th person is bound to buy in eventually. Once we start being fake and not ourselves, it's over.

So to your point, acknowledge your pain and be yourself. I love that message. Finding, accepting and being one's self, it seems to me like a big key to recovery.

. I think people with BPD are intolerable to the people around them mostly and at some point their intolerable to themselves

I don't bother other people that much, but I definitely know if I said what was gonig on my head I would :/. I fight with myself a lot of the time...and usually I sort of am in this airy nothing bugs me mood, but when things hit me they really hit me and then I do become so intolerable to myself. I just fight and bicker in my head. 'I want to do this. No you can't do that. But I want to. That would hurt others. So? You're just a coward. I'm not a coward, I'm nice.' and it goes on and on. Like a side of me doesn't want to care about anyone and just wants to do what it wants to do, but it's constantly reined in by the side that cares too much . >-<

So, in essence, I suppose you're right. I didn't really want to die. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to drift off and just not feel anything ever again.

I did things like swallow pills and cut myself, rip papers , that such. I still cut a little . It was almost like I wasn't even there when I did that stuff, though. I believe I was dissassociating. I just felt this big empty rough sadness and restlessness. I had to do something for it. I couldn't just sit there and let it be in me. I couldn't stand it. So I'd do that stuff and I'd feel like I'd accomplished something. I could have ended up killing myself if I ever went too far with it. Luckily I didn't. I would have recently, I think, but I'm supposed to go to my friend's house and I didn't want to ruin that after she bought me a ticket. So I'm hanging in there .